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Soccer GRASS

After traveling all over Alabama and neighboring states it's sad to see that we are the only city of our size (and smaller) that neglects their fields in the manner that we do. Other sports receive much better support and attention that soccer despite the fact that thousands of kids play every year in Huntsville. I bring this up for an important reason. Our hard clay packed fields cause medical issues. Our kids deserve better. All we need is more attention and more seeding.

Comments
(6)

While I don't know about the conditions of the fields, it is vital that a city maintain and continued to improve the parks and recreation facilities as they are a vital part of the infrastructure that creates the quality if life here. If we do not maintain what we currently have, then how can we add more of these and other types of public spaces? I support the additions of public spaces but want to ensure the continued care reflects quality and commitment of our community.

There is no excuse for the sorry nature of our soccer fields. It is a bad joke in many cases. Decatur, a much smaller city, did it right with Jack Allen. Apparently, we have more important things to do like..silly electric car hubs, and are you "in or out" in so called entertainment districts downtown, etc. Just silly that we do not care about our parks any better than we do. I keep hearing that its coming...but then I hear its a 20 year plan? REALLY? No...that is called procrastination. IT could be done in 5 years if they would move.

We agree that our soccer fields are not up to our standards. Some of that is the winter-kill from this last winter but much of is from year's worth of defferred maintenance and over-use. We are within a few weeks of shutting the Merrimack fields down for an extended period of time to completely re-level and re-sod. The fields throughout John Hunt Park will be reconstructed or eliminated over the next couple years as part of our redevelopment of that park. Quality and quantity of our athletic facilities throughout the city is under review right now.

I would like to see demographics on Huntsville area youth sports. How many children play soccer compared to baseball and football. With such data it would be easy to illustrate the inconsistant attitude and attention from one sport to the other. I assume that the votes down are not soccer fans, but if you saw the numbers and cared about the kids (no matter what sport they prefer), you would probably agree that they all deserve facilities on par with Alabama's other major cities. The fact is that soccer is huge here and we should do a better job ensuring our children dont' receive injury from sub-par fields and can be proud of where they play.

Magnut, we have and continue to look very closely at the demand for all our sports. There is significant demand for many and, yes, soccer is huge. The Huntsville Futbol Club alone has over 900 kids playing on tehir teams. As I said in teh immedaitely previous comment, we have unfunded field maintenance for a number of years. Merrimack is currently shut down and will undergo a full laser-leveling and re-sodding over the next few weeks. We will contiue to fight to find teh resources to expand and upgrade all our recreational facilities over the next few years.

I have to agree on this one. My son has played soccer since he was 3 and he is about to turn 12 and the fields especially at John Hunt are pretty bad. There needes to be some serious work done to get them up to par. Basically right now they are lucky to get mowed well. I hope with the new John Hunt park redesign that the parks and playgound people keep these fields looking good..